Forgotten World (154): Vietnam
Vietnam suffered three decades of bitter independence wars, which the communists fought first against the colonial power France and then against US-backed South Vietnam. It became a unified country in 1976 after the armed forces of the communist north had seized the south of the country in the previous year.
Vietnam today – a country of some 86 million – is a one-party communist state which has one of world’s fastest-growing economies, joined the World Trade Organization in January 2007, and has set its sights on becoming a developed nation by 2020. Deep poverty, defined as a percent of the population living under $1 per day, has declined significantly and is now smaller than that of China, India, and the Philippines.
I have travelled most of the length of Vietnam – see here.